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Topic Title: New Nuclear at any cost now, anyone? Topic Summary: What are the opportunity costs and long term consequences of going for new nuclear at any cost now?Created On: 20 February 2013 02:47 PMStatus:
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But the reality is that the negotiations with EDF are for electricity generation starting in 10 to 15 years (rather than the 3 to 5 years that Ofgem is worried about), so third generation Nuclear is effectively competing with renewable and nuclear technologies of the future more than existing technologies. The forty year subsidy deals now being mooted could still be operational in 2065.

"Never in the field of energy distribution, have so few, secretly conspired, to make so many pay so much, for so long."

Now it is becoming clear that EDF want a better deal from the taxpayer and bill payer combined than a nationalised industry could get; they want guaranteed profits, where as failing nationalised industries were allowed to make losses (even if tax payers were later expected to write them off).

So what are the opportunities lost and long term consequences of going for third generation new nuclear at any cost now? And are these costs worth paying just to keep a small elite group of civil servants, lords, university professors and financially interested parties happy?

I would like the government to have the patience to wait until EDF/Areva actually gets a European sited EPR up and running before committing seriously stupid money to build one in the UK. In the mean time we can build some more gas power stations now and collectively fund some research into fourth generation nuclear technologies, like molten salt reactors. Simple.

There are a number of problems facing any new nuclear power installation:

1) Political will and investment. It is much easier to drip feed subsidies into solar and wind generation than to make a real decision to make a large, long term investment.

2) Over regulation and political interference. Continually changing regulatory goalposts guarantee time and cost overruns. The risk of a 'green' forced shutdown as in Germany will mean that any private investor would require a substantial government guarantee that their 60 year investment will not be shut down after 10 years.

3) A very vocal anti-nuclear group that will use any form of lies and misinformation to further their cause.

4) Unrealistic dose limits, both in normal operation and in accident planning.

"3) A very vocal anti-nuclear group that will use any form of lies and misinformation to further their cause."

Was it a lie when the very nice pro-nuclear man told us, "Nuclear Power will soon be too cheap to meter"?

**Nuclear Subsidies**

RWE npower, one of the big six power suppliers, has warned ministers
not to seal a long-term subsidy deal with the nuclear industry behind
the backs of consumers and saddle them with "unnecessarily high bills"
for the next 40 years. The warning from Paul Massara, RWE UK's new
chief executive, comes as the Guardian can reveal that up to 15
private sector executives with links to the atomic sector have been
seconded to government departments or other public sector roles. A
Freedom of Information request undertaken by the campaign group,
NuclearSpin.org, showed at least 15 people working for the nuclear
energy industry or its consultants have been seconded to areas
responsible for policy or regulation, some being paid for by the
taxpayer.

"3) A very vocal anti-nuclear group that will use any form of lies and misinformation to further their cause."

Was your quote in the Japan Earthquake thread true then?

"When I say huge discharges of radioactivity into the sea I mean 8 million litres a day. This is from greenpeace international:

Sellafield is a nuclear complex situated on the coast of north-west England. Originally named Windscale with the purpose of producing plutonium for the British nuclear weapons program, it is now predominantly a commercial site with reprocessing facilities, fuel fabrication and other installations. It has one of the highest concentrations of radioactive waste on the planet, a disastrous safety record with hundreds of accidents involving the release of radioactive substances into the environment and their radiation of workers.

The reprocessing plants at Sellafield discharge some 8 million litres of nuclear waste into the sea each day. The Irish Sea is one of the most radioactively contaminated seas in the world. In the vicinity of the complex, groundwater, estuaries and soil are contaminated, with levels in the area around Sellafield exceeding contamination inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Compared to the British average, there has been a ten-fold increase of childhood leukaemia around Sellafield. Plutonium dust has been found in the houses of residents living along the Irish Sea coast."

This is from Rob Edwards. He is the environment editor of the Sunday Herald in Scotland and the co-author of three books on nuclear power.

comment, 01 June 2006

The recent death of veteran radiation scientist, John Dunster, has prompted some kind obituaries from his professional colleagues, including one in yesterday's Times. Yet none of them have mentioned what made him most famous - or infamous - in the wider world.

In 1958, Dunster was head of health and safety at the Windscale nuclear plant in Cumbria, now called Sellafield. He gave a talk at a United Nations conference in Geneva about the vast amounts of radioactive waste that the plant had pumped down a pipeline into the Irish Sea over the previous six years.

"The sea has always been regarded by coastal and seafaring peoples as the ideal place for dumping their waste and this is, of course, a very reasonable and proper attitude," he said.

"Almost everything put into the sea is either diluted...or broken down...or stored harmlessly on the seabed. Most of the objects which ultimately do find their way to the shore are harmless and a considerable source of pleasure to children."

Dunster's frankness about Windscale's motives for polluting the sea was disarming. "Not the least of the attractions of the sea as a dumping ground has been the lack of administrative controls," he stated.

"The intention has been to discharge fairly substantial amounts of radioactivity as part of an organised and deliberate scientific experiment...the aims of this experiment would have been defeated if the level of radioactivity discharged had been kept to a minimum."

These remarks, quoted and requoted over the decades to illustrate the unthinking irresponsibility of the nuclear industry in the 1950s, came to haunt Dunster, though he always said they were taken out of context. But they weren't a product of the man, particularly, more of the time.

Windscale has discharged far more radioactive pollution in the sea than any other nuclear plant, and its distinct isotopic signal can be detected in oceans across the globe. The plutonium it has deposited in the silt at the bottom of the Irish Sea is gradually coming ashore, and will keep doing so for decades. The "deliberate scientific experiment", in other words, is not over. And we are all still the guinea pigs.

The cost of cleaning up Sellafield has now reached £67.5 Billion. Public Accounts Committee report Feb.2013.

The taxpayer is still paying for the nuclear power that was generated in the 1970s because we still have the nuclear waste from that time to deal with.

Not long ago this coalition government said there would be no subsides for new build nuclear power.

**Nuclear Subsidies**

EDF Energy's £14 billion reactor project in Somerset faces further
delays of at least two years for the European Commission to consider
if the French state-backed company is being granted illegal state aid
by Britain, a UK rival warned yesterday. EDF is demanding generous
subsidies, funded by levies on British consumers' bills, as well as
loan guarantees from the Government to build the UK's first nuclear
reactor for decades at Hinkley Point. Ministers had assumed that
Brussels would quickly rubber-stamp any deal to allow the company to
start construction. But SSE claimed that EDF Energy's proliferating
demands for Government financial support will force the EC to
deliberate until 2015 at the earliest. The commission's decision would
be under threat of a judicial review, which would take years to
complete. SSE said "It seems unlikely that a final decision will be
made on state aid approval for nuclear subsidy under electricity
market reforms before 2015 at the earliest, and potentially much
later. This is why gambling our energy and capacity future on nuclear
is a high-risk strategy."

Re : >> "Was it a lie when the very nice pro-nuclear man told us, 'Nuclear Power will soon be too cheap to meter'?"

- Classic example of an out-of-context quote. That quote was by a politician (more exactly, a senior civil servant speaking for the government) who was a noted enthusiant for nuclear fusion. He was talking about nuclear fusion, not fission, and in the same speech he said we would have colonies under the deep oceans and on the moon, that there will be no famine anywhere, and that we would be able to travel effortlessly under the sea and through the air at great speeds. He also forecast huge increases in human lifespan. The talk was surely set in the future.

Worth noting that Strauss had no academic or professional background that would qualify him as an expert in nuclear energy. He was addressing the science writers as a government official, and was not a spokesman for the nuclear, or any other, industry. The sort of utopian hyperbole reflected in the above quote is what you might expect in a talk delivered to that audience in the era of scientific and technological hubris of that time, just after the second world wr.

"It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter; will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history; will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age. This is the forecast of an age of peace."

[New York Times, August 7, 1955]

Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss was the chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission (forerunner of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the US Department of Energy nuclear program) from 1953 to 1958. The New York Times reported, on September 17, 1954, that Strauss "predicted ... that industry would have electrical power from atomic furnaces in five to fifteen years." Strauss was right - this came true in 1957, with the start-up of America's first civilian power reactor at Shippingport, Pennsylvania.

Point taken Paul. However he was chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and he was very keen on building atomic furnaces.
I would say he was a very nice pro-nuclear man.

I have been trying to think what is the system of governance which allows new nuclear to be built at any cost, using a large array of implicit and explicit subsidies and concessions.

Is it communism? No definitely not, no shared ownership.
Is it socialism? No, no government ownership and management on our behalf.
Is it free market capitalism? No definitely not, no private sector competition

I have come to the conclusion that none of these political-economic systems are relevant to the analysis of the current new build nuclear case. The closest historic analogy to the current state of affairs in regards to new nuclear at the moment is feudalism.

The government are acting as the ultimate feudal landlord, providing secretly negociated concessions to their favoured friends, all paid for by compulsory levy's on peoples income and expenditure.

So depending on how you see things its either 'welcome back to the middle ages' or a 'welcome to the new age of gangmaster government'

Bridget Woodman: On the day the Government gave the go-ahead for
construction of the nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point C, it is
worth reflecting on a number of key issues around its new framework
for financial support for nuclear power, renewables and carbon capture
and storage (CCS), a Contract for Difference (CfD), and in particular
what it implies for consumers' energy bills in the future. Not only is
the strike price double the current market price for electricity, it
is also significantly above the estimated cost of electricity from the
same reactor in France, and 25 per cent above DECC's original cost
estimate for power. Hardly value for money for consumers. One reason
for such a high strike price may be that EDF is reportedly demanding a
10 per cent rate of return on its investment. By way of contrast, it
is interesting to compare this with DECC's views of the rate of return
guaranteed under the Feed In Tariff (FiT) for small scale solar PV.
When DECC was challenged over the reduction in the FiT it stated, "we
continue to consider that a significantly lower tariff is needed to
provide generators with a rate of return of 4.5 per cent to five per
cent for well located installations. What is particularly alarming
about the nuclear deal, is even if it is completed to time and budget
(which has not occurred with similar projects in Finland and France),
it will lock in a generation of electricity consumers to higher energy
bills for decades into the future, while once again treating newer,
cleaner renewable technologies as the poor relation in the electricity
market.

The plant has not yet got the go-ahead. It is not yet financed, and that depends on negotiations between the governance and EDF. Indeed, the agreement needed should require the EMR legislation to be in place, but even that has been subverted. And even that does not ensure it will be built, as other investors still have to be satisfied that their mouths will be stuffed with enough gold.
What the planning approval does show is that the government has succeeded in shutting down debate by subverting the planning processes to deny formal presentation of evidence against nuclear, its safety, its costs, and its consequences. It is now all done behind closed doors.

I was trying to imagine the other day how the world would have developed if the government in the eighteenth century had adopted the Newcomen steam engine as its chosen steam technology of the future and showered it with subsidies, dedicated infrastructure to it and funded all its waste disposal needs. Then on top of this actively helped the newly created 'Newcomen Industry' in blocking new technological developments like James Watt's Steam Engine etc.

What would the atmospheric polution be like now? How would science have developed in terms of understanding energy?

Obviously this is directed in terms of creating a metaphor for exposing the lunacy of what the civil service nuclear fanatics are trying to achieve behind the scenes now, in trying to keep third generation nuclear technologies alive at any cost. (including non-financial costs)

I really seriously believe that the government should get themselves out of the way now and let engineers (and their private sector backers) set out competing visions for what they want to do and how they want the world to function in the future in terms of energy. At first people will laugh at these 'new' engineering solutions, but then they will quickly come to realise that giving up without trying new ideas is no real option either.

Engineering is about having cost effective ideas that eventually prove better than those of the past, and then getting independent people to believe and invest in those ideas (even if initially they think you are mad).

The flight of the phoenix comes to mind when they find out that the 'aeronautical engineer' whose vision for the future they believed in was just a designer of 'toy' aeroplanes.

Actually he built scale model aeroplanes and as it happens there is a world of difference between a scale model and a toy.

Nuclear Engineers should not aspire to my Newcomen metaphor and continue to help build an industry that colludes with government to drown out competing ideas inspite of all the difficulties we face with the existing technologies, in terms of cost, waste and the terrible consquences of major disasters.

Originally posted by: jarathoon.... waste and the terrible consquences of major disasters.

I don't want to detract from the rest of your post, which is fine, but I'm not convinced that nuclear power has quite the scale of terrible consequences that you suggest, and believe that this link which was posted by someone else in another 'nuclear safety' type thread some time ago is relevant;

This shows that deaths per TWh attributable to nuclear power generation are miniscule compared to other forms of energy production.

I'm quite happy for costs / subsidies etc to be debated, but don't believe that safety is a valid argument against nuclear power, and I often wonder if there had never been any nuclear weapons would people still be so paranoid about nuclear power. Why do people panic at the thought of nuclear radiation but start typing into Google (if they can be bothered) when they hear 'methyl isocyanate', and have no idea what happened at the Banqiao Dam? If 300 people die at sea, or 200 in an air crash why is that perceived as less of a disaster and less newsworthy than a nuclear power station meltdown?

One more thing that perhaps does relate more to your post; What would the world be like now if all other forms of energy production had the same levels of safety requirements placed on them? What if there was originally a requirement for coal air pollution consequences to be equal or less than the consequences of radioactive pollution, would we have coal fired power stations now?

"The World Health Organization and other sources attribute about 1 million deaths/year to coal air pollution. Coal generates about 6200 TWh out of the world total of 15500 TWh of electricity. This would be 161 deaths per TWh."

Even if you limit your study to the economic consequences of Nuclear Reactor Meltdowns, here is a economic costing for accident at Sizewell B for example.

1. Nuclear Power Station Generating Asset Lost 1.2GW (at £40 per MWh and 80% utilisation that is £330 million a year income stream lost for good. For the generator to purchase replacement power to meet its contractual obligations is going to be a lot more than this. They will quicky be haemorrhaging cash even with generous state backed insurance subsidies to cover most of the claims against them.

2. Evacuation zone. Housing Assets now valueless. Surrounding Farmland no longer can be used because of contamination, substantial on going income streams lost for decades. Substantial one off costs for relocating people and businesses.

2. Where economic activity is allowed to continue clean up costs and economic restrictions may apply. You can debate with me the extent to which we need to clean things up. However the last restrictions on animal movements following the Chernobyl dissaster were only lifted last year (26 years after the event)

I have seen no analyses to show that the FSA acted irrationally on this. All these restrictions have economic consequences that can last for generations.

3. European Trade Restrictions In farm produced food.

I could go on but we've discussed all this many times before.

Even if no one dies the consequences for the economic health of the UK are indeed terrible (distressingly bad or serious).

I think finding new ways of building nuclear power stations so that they do not fail catastrophically when they lose power for extended periods is an engineering task that has for too long now been neglected.

Many of those restrictions are based on limits in relation to radiation that are not applied to other forms of energy or manufacturing processes on equivalent terms. We have little idea of the consequences had those restrictions on animal movements never been applied, perhaps it would have led to the early deaths of a number of people, but would that be on a similar scale to the WHO estimate of 1 million per year from coal air pollution?

If for example we applied similar restrictions to coal air pollution such that it did not affect animals and humans, applied restrictions on animal movement in areas affected by coal air pollution, and enforced limits on 'leakage' from coal fired power stations such that the number of deaths attributable to coal energy production was of the same scale as that attributable to nuclear energy production, then coal fired power stations would probably not exist or would be horrendously expensive to construct.

I would also argue that if someone had developed a weapon of mass destruction 60 years ago that used coal as its prime element, then people would be just as paranoid about coal fired power stations as they are about nuclear power stations. I still don't see how we can brush off 1 million per year deaths attributable to coal air pollution yet at the same time still argue that nuclear power is an evil monster because of what happened at Chernobyl nearly 27 years ago. The estimated number of deaths per year in the USA attributable to coal air pollution is 30,000 and that is not newsworthy, if that same number could be attributed to nuclear energy production then it would be in the news for weeks or months.

Originally posted by: jarathoon2. Where economic activity is allowed to continue clean up costs and economic restrictions may apply. You can debate with me the extent to which we need to clean things up. However the last restrictions on animal movements following the Chernobyl dissaster were only lifted last year (26 years after the event)

But it did not stop life going on and in some areas doing very well during those 26 years. What exactly do you want, some fluffy cotton wool type world without any risks? Remind me again how many people died through Chernobyl and how many have died in Iraq in the last 10 years and on the road in the last 26 years and in Syria and in etc., etc. Try to keep a sense of proportion with regards to the risks in life.

I have seen no analyses to show that the FSA acted irrationally on this. All these restrictions have economic consequences that can last for generations.

Are you and your family poor and starving and if not then what is the big economic issue? You suggest economic consequences as if they are a negative, how exactly do you know what economic benefits will arise in the years during which nuclear power provides its power? Your argument is biased towards cherry picking negatives and without considering also the potential positives.

Even if no one dies the consequences for the economic health of the UK are indeed terrible (distressingly bad or serious).

How do you know, are you able to see into the future?

I think finding new ways of building nuclear power stations so that they do not fail catastrophically when they lose power for extended periods is an engineering task that has for too long now been neglected.

How do you know it has been neglected, have you evidence to show that engineers have not been working on it? Has there been some catastropic failure somewhere that has claimed 10s of 1000s of lives? If not and we have a limited amount of resource do you think we should allocate resources to where the higher risks are or do you think we should just spend it all as you think best? Politicians have to make those types of decisions, basically because they decided to run for political office and so take on those challenges.

Many of those restrictions are based on limits in relation to radiation that are not applied to other forms of energy or manufacturing processes on equivalent terms. We have little idea of the consequences had those restrictions on animal movements never been applied, perhaps it would have led to the early deaths of a number of people, but would that be on a similar scale to the WHO estimate of 1 million per year from coal air pollution?

Over the years pollution due to burning coal and other fuels has been reduced in th UK. Hopefully in the future pollution levels from cars will be reduced as well, particularly in large cities. I don't think there is an argument for releasing extra radioactivity, just because we have been seriously negligent in the past in controlling other forms of chemical pollution.

Comparing effects due to radioactivity release with other forms of pollution is difficult. Illness profiles and the nature of disablement during life must be taken into account; as well as premature work related and wider population death rates. Age profiles of those affected must also be taken into consideration.

One of the problems is that children especially unborn children suffer disproportionately to radioactivity induced illness compared with other age groups (especially in regards to thyroid problems).

If you are old enough not to want to procreate then living with mildly elevated levels of radioactivity isn't going to be much of a worry. For people with young children or about to have children it becomes a bigger concern.

Originally posted by: jarathoonComparing effects due to radioactivity release with other forms of pollution is difficult. Illness profiles and the nature of disablement during life must be taken into account; as well as premature work related and wider population death rates. Age profiles of those affected must also be taken into consideration.

Then it can be reasonably argued that nuclear power related deaths and illness are not significant, because if they were it would be easier to compare the effects due to radioactivity release.

One of the problems is that children especially unborn children suffer disproportionately to radioactivity induced illness compared with other age groups (especially in regards to thyroid problems).

It is always unfortunate when a young person has a serious illness! 260,000 children die every year due to road crashes and about 10 million are injured. Drowning kills 175,000 each year. 47,000 fall to their death and another 45,000 die through unintended poisoning. Let's work to make nulcear power safer and more cost efficient but let's also understand that living life has significant risks associated with it.

If you are old enough not to want to procreate then living with mildly elevated levels of radioactivity isn't going to be much of a worry. For people with young children or about to have children it becomes a bigger concern.

This is a fair point but if these risks are compared with all the others which will be faced then from a risk point of view nuclear power compares favourably. However should we have it at any cost? Definitely not at any cost.